


The Last Thread Of Hope

by Measured



Category: Radiant Historia
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/pseuds/Measured
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Already the sands in the hourglass were running out on another generation of the Granorg royal family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Thread Of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Assumes the normal ending, as opposed to the true/best ending, except without that last scene.

She married before the first anniversary of her brother's death. It was not a love match, but he was tolerable, and had no ambitions of power, and had just enough royal blood to ensure that any child would hold the power. Even content to not take the title of king, but consort, leaving everything in her capable hands.

There had never been much room for love in Granorg. 

On her wedding night she tiptoed off while her husband slept off the wine. She laid a few flowers from the castle gardens there on the moss-covered grave erected in the back of the castle. So many gravestones were left nameless, even this one has no etching. She had left flowers and prayers there every day, though Granorg had no saint to blindly put their faith into.

She would never forget Ernst's sacrifice, not even for a moment.

*

She named her first child Hope, because it was the one thing she missed most, almost as much as Ernst. Her husband's eyes had already begun to wander by then. He resembled Protea too much, but with no delusions of power. She would be lying if she said that she had grown a steel armor about her heart, that it did not hurt, but so it was. She should have picked better, she should have waited.

As it was, his duty was almost finished. She had to have at least two children to survive until the time of the culling. Any less and the ritual would not be able to be completed. Any more and there might erupt wars over who will rule. Such a thing could be catastrophic, especially with a royal line to be used as lambs for the slaughter. 

Time went on. Granorg stumbled toward happiness. Her partnership with Alistel and the beastkind were showing some results at the edge of the vast desert. A scientist had claimed to find a possible solution for the desertification. With the war at an end, many machines were dismantled, rusted metal forming a graveyard in the deserts at the edge of their countries.

But all these would take years to come into fruition, and already the sands in the hourglass were running out on another generation of the Granorg royal family.

*

Hope was a quiet baby, rarely fussing unless she left Eruca's side. Eruca got used to signing papers and going to meetings with a child seated on her hip and resting against her as she weighed the fate of a nation.

Hope's first stumbling steps were in her office, her first words said during a meeting with courtiers. Eruca saw in her a future queen, another Granorg woman who would hold the burden. 

Hope would look up at her, eyes filled with love. She would gurgle little words, and bite at the edge of Eruca's royal garments. For every moment of happiness, Eruca was filled with an equal amount of sorrow. Food, grime, mud, all stained her sky-blue dresses. Toys were scattered about the corners of her office.

Hope was almost never left to nursemaids. Eruca would treasure every moment left she had with her children.

*

She brushed the golden curls of her little girl. Hope laid her head against Eruca's swollen belly, her eyes fluttering shut. She had steeled herself for this, and tried to detach herself, just as she did when she knew her brother would be the sacrifice. But even now as then, she could not turn herself into someone unfeeling, someone completely detached for the sake of her country. She was not better at holding back her love than she ever was for Ernst.

Her kindness was both her greatest strength and her deepest weakness.

Time marched on like a the beat of a war drum. Her heart was not ice yet, but one day, it would be. Which child would be sent out to see the world and then be sacrificed for it? Which child would wait, half their heart gone?

How had so many mothers before her made this choice? How had they managed it? History was repeating before her very eyes. If she could sacrifice herself, go in their place, she would, she would. But her heart had already been halved once; it couldn't be cut into any more pieces and given away, no matter how much she wished and prayed for it to be so.

_Was your sacrifice for nothing, Ernst?_

_I refuse to believe that._

Maybe he bought them another day with his blood, another month, another year with the last breath of his body. His sacrifice had stopped the war, had put them on the path to healing. Maybe some far off year they would find the secret to stop the desertification once and for all, but how much more blood would have to be shed to achieve it?

Only time would tell.


End file.
